This evening I’m giving a talk to my daughter’s Girl Scouts troop about careers in technology. I’m going to tell them that women have done amazing things in tech. I’m going to tell them that they too can do anything they set their minds to in this arena. But I will be lying to them. “You can do whatever you set your mind to” is a half-truth, because there are real obstacles—if not barriers—that keep women and minorities from truly thriving in this field. The tech industry has a diversity problem, and it’s a problem not just for these young girls, but for all of us. READ MORE: We Aren’t Imagining It: The Tech Industry Needs More Women | LifeHacker
Tag Archives: STEM
Microsoft and Code.org Want to Teach #Kids to Code With #Minecraft | CNET #coding #hourofcode #learning #tech #STEM #skills #gaming
Image Credit: Microsoft
The new Minecraft module is part of Code.org’s third annual Hour of Code, a worldwide campaign that tries to demystify code by teaching the basics of computer science in just an hour. The Hour of Code takes place during Computer Science Education Week from December 7 – 13.
If users sign up for the free Hour of Code Minecraft module, they’ll learn how to use blocks of code to make Steve or Alex, the two main character skins from the game, adventure through a Minecraft world. Other modules, including some based on Star Wars, “Frozen” and other popular content, are also available on the Code.org site. READ MORE: Microsoft and Code.org want to teach kids to code with Minecraft | CNET
‘Codegirl’ #Documentary to hit YouTube Before Theaters, At No Charge | CNET #film #coding #tech #documentaries #STEM #education #free
CODEGIRL: Free to Watch on YouTube until November 5, 2015
Now playing on YouTube: a new documentary that tells the story of teenage girls who use computer code to solve problems. The film “Codegirl” is hitting YouTube before it gets to theaters and video on demand, and in that initial window you won’t have to pay to watch it. “Codegirl” follows high-school-age girls from around the world who enter a competition to try to better their communities through app design. READ MORE: ‘Codegirl’ documentary to hit YouTube before theaters, at no charge | CNET
Why Aren’t There More #Women in #Tech? | Next Generation #infographics #genderdiversity #STEM #employment #sexism #equality
Women are under-represented in the tech sector. Not only that, but they’re underpaid, often passed for promotions and faced with every day sexism. It’s no wonder women are more likely to leave the industry within a year compared to their male counterparts. MORE: Why Aren’t There More Women in Tech? | Next Generation
This Girls’ Summer Camp Could Help Change the World of #AI | WIRED #women #tech #genderequality #STEM
IN A SPARSE lecture room at Stanford University, six students are rehearsing a presentation they’ll later give to a roomful of VIPs from the university’s artificial intelligence lab…It’s presentation day at SAILORS, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory’s Outreach Summer program, the country’s first AI summer camp for girls. Backed by more than forty university professors, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students from the lab, as well as big-name corporate sponsors like Google, the camp aims to remove the Achilles heel of AI research and, indeed, computer science as a whole: there aren’t enough women. READ MORE: This Girls’ Summer Camp Could Help Change the World of AI | WIRED
Where Are The #Women In #Tech? #Coding Bootcamps | Fast Company #diversity #STEM
Only 29% of all employees across the most influential U.S. technology companies—Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Intel—are women. But that includes salespeople, service workers, and communications professionals. Companies that break out gender ratio by role report an an even more drastic disparity. At Twitter, 10% of technical workers are women. At Facebook, it’s 16%.
Computer science programs across the country report a similar dearth of women. As of 2012, the last year for which the National Science Foundation has published data, only about 18% of degrees in the field were obtained by women, the lowest percentage of any STEM discipline. But there is one corner of this pale, male landscape that has less of a gender imbalance than others: coding schools. READ MORE: Where Are The Women In Tech? Coding Bootcamps | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.
Here Are 5 Contenders For A New, #Female #MacGyver – Will One Help Drive #Girls To Engineering? | Co.Create #STEM
Awesome on so many levels!!
Could television be the secret weapon that gets more girls into science There is no shortage of initiatives that aim to get girls interested in STEM careers from an early age. From GoldieBlox’s building kits and storybooks to the 8-week summer camp Girls Who Code teaching teens the fundamentals of robotics and web development. That’s because in order to right the lopsided gender balance in science, engineering, and math, research indicates that it’s important to engage girls while they are young and encourage them to continue to pursue STEM careers. And we all know how important diversity is to business, particularly as it becomes more globally connected.
Yet engineering toys and school programs can’t necessarily stem the tide of media images that continue to push the idea the typical scientist, programmer, or engineer is a white guy working alone. That’s why the USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering and the National Academy of Engineering pooled their resources in partnership with the MacGyver Foundation and together they’re crowdsourcing a concept for a new television show starring a strong female scientist —the next MacGyver. READ MORE: Here Are 5 Contenders For A New, Female MacGyver–Will One Help Drive Girls To Engineering? | Co.Create | creativity + culture + commerce.
Exposing Every Student To #STEM | TechCrunch #students #skills #education
According to the National Center for College and Career Transitions (NC3T), about 20 percent of careers — and many of the fastest growing areas — directly relate to science, technology, engineering and math.
But by one count, an insufficient number of students today will pursue STEM careers. So how do we convince students that STEM is important even if they don’t think they will pursue a career in a related field? READ MORE: Exposing Every Student To STEM | TechCrunch.
Read This Letter From #Scientists Accusing Top Publisher Of #Sexism | BuzzFeed #women #STEM #careers #diversity #genderequality
The letter was signed by 600 [scientists and their supporters] and sent Tuesday to the publisher of Science and to BuzzFeed News. It denounces the elite publisher for sexist columns, an offensive cover photo about trans people, and a snarky tweet from an editor who has since resigned. READ MORE: Read This Letter From Scientists Accusing Top Publisher Of Sexism | BuzzFeed News.
Can These Tiny #Robots Teach Fourth Graders How To Code? | Fast Company #coding #kids #tech #makerspaces
I’m in a laboratory at Drexel University watching a remote-controlled robot do a spastic breakdance across the floor. The fist-sized, brightly colored bot looks simple enough: It has two wheels, two antennae, and what appears to be a friendly face. But it has a mission much bigger and more ambitious than its tiny form factor: This thing wants to teach kids how to become programmers.
This freewheeling toy android comes from a young startup called LocoRobo. Its moves are set using a mobile app that allows the user to program simple actions: go forward, accelerate, spin around, stop. And while plenty of kids would be content to play with a smartphone-controlled toy robot, LocoRobo wants to let them dig much deeper into the code and sensors that make it work. READ MORE: Can These Tiny Robots Teach Fourth Graders How To Code? | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.
infophile 